Research Funding

Nebraska EPSCoR – Early Career FIRST Award

Deadline for Pre-Proposals:  5 PM, Wednesday, July 7, 2021

Funded by the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) infrastructure grant to Nebraska EPSCoR, the competitive FIRST Award grant program provides assistance to Nebraska’s early-career, tenure-track faculty. The grants are designed to help early career faculty initiate their research programs and compete more effectively for NSF CAREER grants. Any project that could be supported by a National Science Foundation competitive research grant is eligible.

Approximately six FIRST Award grants are awarded each year; the awards are limited to $25,000 each and require a one-for-one match. An assistant professor in a tenure-leading position in any of the the colleges or universities in the state is eligible to submit a pre-proposal. The faculty member must be in his or her first four years of initial academic appointment at the time of submittal. Any project that potentially could be supported by a NSF competitive research grant is eligible.

Phase one of the application process involves the submission of a short pre-proposal that will be reviewed by a panel comprised of members of Nebraska’s scientific community. Ten or fewer proposals are invited to advance to the final phase: the submission of a full, NSF CAREER-like proposal. Full proposals from these finalists will be evaluated using NSF proposal review criteria by external experts in the field. The Nebraska EPSCoR Committee will select FIRST Award recipients.

Grantees are required to submit a CAREER Award proposal to NSF within the next award period. Check Nebraska EPSCoR’s Requests for Proposals page for submission details, PDF of instructions, and to submit a pre-proposal online.

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